Today we feature Paige Bathurst, who has a passion for leadership and helping people. Paige is a double major in both Supply Chain and Logistics from the Rohrer College of Business and Leadership and Social Innovation in the College of Education with a minor in Management Information Systems. She is a sophomore from Mantua, NJ (Gloucester County). Paige is a part of many organizations and activities on campus: the Bureau of Business Associations (BOBA), American Production and Inventory Control Society (APICS), Hillel, and Student Government Association. Paige is also a resident assistant and an admissions ambassador.
How has your time at Rowan been so far?
My overall time at Rowan has been pretty unique. I started fall of 2020 as a freshman in the midst of the pandemic. Though I commuted my first year I was able to still come to campus for one class. One of the reasons why I love Rowan is because we were able to operate safely even with the pandemic.
I am so happy with my choice to come here. I have made so many connections in my first two years here with friends, faculty and mentors. One of the people I met was Fiona Hughes, who was the previous Chief Financial Officer for SGA. I got involved with the learning community at the business school where I met assistant dean Karen Murtha. To this day I still chat with her. She emails me sometimes with questions to get a student’s opinion.
I think being able to come to Rowan and make all these connections first thing and continuing them has been so important to me. Also, living so close to Rowan I knew some people from high school coming here.
Why Supply Chain and Logistics and Leadership and Social Innovation?
Supply Chain is the major I came into Rowan as. Originally I was accounting but after going to an information session and learning more about Supply Chain I made the switch. I really like how the major has to work with all of the different departments in business. Not many schools offer the major, so I liked that as well.
My second semester at Rowan I added the Leadership major and chose the business concentration along with it so I can have some overlap with the coursework. Leadership has been a passion of mine since high school. I sometimes say that it is my fun major since it is something that I am really interested in.
Learning how the two majors can work together sets me up for holding a managerial position in the future. I also wanted to branch out of the College of Business and learn from people of other majors. The leadership classes maybe have one or two business majors, which I really like. That was something that drew me to the major because it made me think of concepts outside of a business setting.
How have your majors influenced your life at Rowan?
I find myself drawing from my Leadership Theory course often. The last assignment for the course was to write a 10-page paper on your own leadership theory. As I have come into more leadership roles as a resident assistant and being on the executive board for SGA, it has been very beneficial. I thought about what my values are when in meetings and otherwise, which is something I would not have thought about if I had not taken the course.
With my business courses I think working in groups in my classes is giving me a good experience working with teams. Should problems in a team setting ever arise I can draw from what I have done perviously to come up with a solution.
Tell me about your experience so far being a Resident Assistant.
“RA life is like no other life” is what I tell students applying when they ask me for advice. I did not fully understand what being an RA would be like when applying. You do not expect waking up in the middle of the night for a lock out and always looking out for something in case you need to launch into action.
Similar to being an Ambassador we are a group of people who all have something in common. We can all bond over our RA stories and lean from each other. It is nice to know there is someone who has likely already been in a similar situation. But just having a great group of people there to support you.
Being an RA, I love that I can be a support for students, whether it be dealing with a Title IX incident or going with a resident to a club meeting because they are trying to branch out and don’t want to go alone.
It has been really meaningful to me to be there for my residents and others. It is why I signed up to be an RA, I wanted to be a support system.
Tell me about your time being an Admissions Ambassador.
I have loved being an Admissions Ambassador, it is one of the greatest jobs. It is right on campus and super flexible, you can work as much as you want or the minimum requirement. What drew me to this position was my experience on my tour of Rowan when I came here. I wanted to be the person speaking with a prospective student and talking with their families. There are probably more than 100 of us and we are all different but it bonds us together because of our shared love for Rowan. We call each other the ambassafam, and that is so true we all love being around each other and support one another. It is really nice to go work and be surrounded by people you can call friends and know will support you.
Tell me about your time in SGA.
Student Government is something that I wanted to be involved in from the get-go. In 2017 I was at Rowan for an on-campus program called STEAM. There a few other girls and I were approached and asked if we wanted to be in an Instagram post. The person handed us rally towels and posted the image to the Rowan SGA’s instagram page. The post is still on the page and that rally towel is still on my dresser at home. When I met Fiona Hughes she told me that they were looking for a senator for BOBA and I knew I wanted to be involved in SGA so I did it. Some people still call me Paige from BOBA because my face was constantly on their screens during the Zoom meetings. When election time came around I reached out to Fiona again and she enthusiastically told me to run for CFO.
It is interesting being an executive board member and the CFO. Being CFO I serve 10 office hours per week where I will do finance work and other responsibilities. I am the one who has to approve when clubs want to get things like pizza for their meetings.
My biggest task as CFO will be coming up late March where we will hold budget hearings. We create a balanced budget for the organizations on campus. It is really important for me to help clubs use their budget the best ways they can and just make sure they are working to have what they want.
I have really enjoyed this year and getting to work with treasurers as CFO but I do see myself in a more leadership role. Many of my passions lie with tackling issues with the Wellness Center, our BIPOC community, being available to students for my one-on-ones and making SGA more known on campus and what we are here for. Which is why I want to run for president and work on all of those things.
What is your favorite memory at Rowan?
My favorite memory would have to be a senate meeting we had in the fall. We had a loss in our community and the senate meeting had every seat filled and many students came to speak. It was a long night, we had been going on the same topic for five hours. It was hard but it was a way for students to grieve and show us how they feel and that is what I am here to do. I want to be a support for students, whether it is during our one-on-ones as an RA or listening to every student coming to the mic and speaking to a huge room full of students and administration. Our debrief after that senate meeting was just really relying on each other. It is ok to be human and while we are all in these leadership roles we are all the same as any student walking up to that mic. We were all able to come together as a whole student body and as an executive board to come together, to just be there for each other.
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Photos and Story by:
Stephanie Batista, junior business management major